


Oh, Never Leave Me

by CaptainoftheUSSTardis



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainoftheUSSTardis/pseuds/CaptainoftheUSSTardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I let out a small gasp at the sudden pressure on my stomach. I reach down to touch it gently and… blood... "I think someone shot me, Todd." // Viola's thoughts during the final moments of The Knife of Never Letting Go into The Ask and the Answer. (One-shot)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Never Leave Me

Crack.

I let out a small gasp at the sudden pressure on my stomach. I reach down to touch it gently and… blood. New blood, wet, thick blood coming out of a small hole somewhere near stomach. I hold up my now-bloody fingers in front of me, breathing hard. I know what’s happened but… I can’t… I can’t… Not when we’re so close… so close to safety… to Haven. 

“Todd?” I say softly. And then my knees buckle and I fall forward into his chest, his arms. He stumbles back, eyes wide, scared. He looks up somewhere behind me… somewhere… 

“Todd?” I say into his shirt, fighting to get the words out. “I think someone shot me, Todd.” He holds me tight, and then I hear the sound of hooves approaching. I don’t turn to see the person who shot me, but I see the anger in Todd’s eyes, and Todd’s Noise. I hear Viola Viola Viola and the red heat of Davy Prentiss Jr. 

I want to grab Todd’s knife, I can tell he wants to grab it as well, but he doesn’t have it. It got whisked away with Aaron’s body down the waterfall. I try not to think of that night… of me plunging the knife into Aaron’s neck but… but… 

“I think she wants you bad Todd,” Davy Prentiss Jr. sneers from behind me. I feel Todd stiffen, and his Noise rises so red and so angry that it almost makes me flinch. I try to turn my head to Davy, but my head is a slab of concrete… it’s so hard to move. My energy is draining with the blood from my stomach. I press my hand to the wound, but it doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything. And still… And still I keep my hand on the pool of blood on my body. 

I’m Todd effing Hewitt comes from Todd’s noise. “I’ll thank you to call me Mr. Hewitt,” Todd spits, and I can’t help but smile the tiniest bit. “Come on, now,” Davy says, his voice a little more wobbly than it was before. That’s it, Todd, I think. That’s it… “Hands up. I’m taking you to my father.” But then… then… Todd ignores him and I’m being lowered to the ground in his arms. Pain shoots from the bullet wound to the rest of my body. “It burns, Todd,” I say, no more than a whisper. 

Then he takes his shirt off, balls it up and holds against the gushing wound. “You hold that tight, you hear me?” His is Noise growing angrier and redder by the minute. “This won’t take a second.” I manage a nod and my eye lids are starting to becoming weights, trying to fall to the ground. 

“Get up,” Davy says, and I can tell his horse is slightly jumpy from Todd’s Noise. That’s it Todd… That’s it. “I ain’t telling you twice, Todd.” 

Todd stands and takes a step in front of me, towards Davy. But I’m not looking at them, I can’t. I’m only looking at the gray sky above me… so bright it’s almost white. It’s like it’s surrounding me… taking me away from everything, away from Todd. No. I fight to stay here, I fight to stay with him, I fight to stay away. 

And then, “I’ll shoot you!” Davy shouts, and I try to turn my head. I see Todd running out of the corner of my eye, towards Davy, towards his horse. “No you won’t!” Todd yells and then SNAKE comes loud and clear from his Noise. I smile the tiniest bit again. 

I hear the horse rear, and “Goddammit, Todd!”, and hooves and feet moving around. Everything’s starting to blur together… I try to crane my neck to see what Todd’s doing but it hurts… everything hurts so damn much. 

“Yer a dead man!” Davy shouts. “Yer half right,” Todd retorts. That’s it, Todd… That’s it. 

There’s more shuffling back and forth, and “Effing horse!” Davy shouts, and the sound of a hard punch and I hope it’s Todd that hit Davy. And then I hear a smack and I see Davy Prentiss Jr.’s horse running away, past me, back up the hill, pulling Davy along, his foot caught in the stirrup. That’s it Todd… That’s it. But then I feel like there’s so much blood everywhere and I’m drowning in it and the smell of metal pierces my nose and…

“Todd?” I ask, searching for him, somewhere in the gray sky. He appears next to me, and I feel the slightest tinge of relief, but it doesn’t last for long. I press his shirt harder against my stomach, despite the pain, despite the blood. “I think I’m dying, Todd,” I say weakly. My body is turning from burning hot to ice cold. “Yer not dying!” he says, his voice getting caught in his throat. He picks me up, one arm under my knees and the other under my shoulders. I put my right arm around his neck, so tight like it’ll stop me from falling down a cliff. My other arm is still pressing his shirt to the wound. 

“I’m cold,” I say, pressing the side of my head to his warm chest. “Yer not effing dying!” He says, though it feels as if he’s shouting so loud the whole world can hear him. “Not today.” 

Todd starts running down the hill, towards Haven, towards safety. “Come on!” He cries, while barreling through bushes and plants and anything standing in his away. If there was a person in front of him, he would run right through them, not even slowing down. His Noise is loud and chaotic. I hear Viola Viola Viola Viola Viola and Haven Get to Haven Get to Haven. 

“Hang on,” he says to me. “You hang on, you hear me?” His shouting mixes with his Noise, and it becomes hard to tell which is which. I let out a gasp of pain whenever we land hard, but I push through it, and Todd keeps running, keeps running, keeps running. Towards Haven. Towards safety. We’ve been running for hours, years. How much longer? “Todd?”

“Hang on!” Todds keeps running, and I hear the sound of a river. I try to look at our surroundings, but we’re moving too fast and it’s making me dizzy and I have to look back up to the sky. The sky so bright. And I think… I think I see my parents, reaching out to me. I want to take their hands and be wrapped up in their arms. I want to be back on our ship with my friends… with Bradley and Simone. I want everything to be back to the way it was… before the crash. Before New World. Before… No. That’s one thing I don’t wish would change. Without Todd… I most certainly would be dead already. And then I fight some more. Fight to stay awake, fight to stay with Todd. Todd, who helped me get away from Aaron, who sacrificed his own dog to save me, who has traveled all this way with me, who is my first friend on this wretched planet. My light in this world of darkness. My… 

“Hang on!” he yells again. He keeps running, and we must be getting close to Haven because Todd shouts, “HELP! HELP US!” He shouts so loud I think he’s going to tear his throat in two. “I don’t think I can…” I say, breathing hard, grabbing the back of neck tighter to keep from slipping from all the sweat. Breathing becomes harder than ever. I try to take long breaths but they’re just shallow, like the air refuses to enter my lungs. “Yes you CAN!” Todd shouts. “Don’t you DARE give up!”

“Todd?”

“We’re almost there.”

“I’m losing it, Todd –” My head becomes fuzzy and heavy… So, so heavy. I just want to lie back, I just want to… close my eyes… “No, yer NOT!” He shouts right at me. “You WAKE UP, Viola Eade! You keep yer ruddy eyes open.” 

And I try. I pull my head back up and force my eyes open, though I can only manage a squint. And Todd keeps running, running and yelling “HELP!” His Noise is louder than ever before, yelling and pleading. “HELP!” I hear please please please no come from his Noise. “HELP US!” I keep my eyes open slightly and blink slowly, but my breath… I gasp for all the air I can take it. 

Out of the corner of my eyes I see houses… buildings… structures… but no people. No people. “HELP!” Todd cries for someone, anyone. Where is everyone? “HELP US!” He stops running, and I feel a wave of dizziness hit me like a punch. My arm is slipping, slipping from his neck and it falls…

But he kneels and catches me and then stands back up. I manage to get my arm that weighs a thousand pounds back around his neck. And I realize I don’t ever want to let go. He holds his shirt to the wound and there’s so much blood. “Todd?” I say, my voice soft, far away, like it isn’t me talking. “Please,” Todd pleads softly. His voice is breaking and tears are welling in his eyes. “Please.” 

Please please please please please comes from his Noise and then – 

“Well since you asked so nicely,” a new voice says, coming from somewhere… and everywhere. And I recognize it. It’s the same voice from the other side of the bridge when we blew it up. A voice from a lifetime ago. Todd looks up with a jolt. “No,” he whispers, and his Noise says the same thing. I think the same thing… because that voice… that voice…. 

“Yes, Todd. I’m afraid so.” It’s Mayor Prentiss. I try to turn my head to face him, but Todd motions for me to not move. He’s on a horse, its hooves clopping against the dirt road towards us. No no no, please, God, no. How? How can he…

“How can you be here? How?!” He asks, as if reading my mind. His Noise rises red and furious. It almost hurts to listen to it. 

“Even a simpleton knows there’s two roads to Haven,” Mayor Prentiss says, his voice so calm… so calm… “But how?” Todd cries. “The army’s a day away at least –”

“Sometimes the rumour of an army is just as effective as the army itself, my boy.” I try to shake my head, but it hurts so much. How could they? The people of Haven surrendered without a fight. Mayor Prentiss continues. “The terms of surrender were most favorable. One of which was clearing the streets so I could welcome you here myself. Though I was expecting of course my son to bring you.” 

I smile weakly as I picture Davy Prentiss being dragged away up the hill on his horse. More hooves are approaching us, I can’t tell how many. The sound blurs together into something unintelligible. 

“Oh, it’s President Prentiss now,” he adds. “You’ll do well to remember that.” There’s a pause and I try to press Todd’s shirt harder to the wound, but there’s so much blood coming from my body and my eyelids are heavy and my brain feels fuzzy and then… Todd’s Noise comes to a realization. No Noise, no one has Noise, I can’t hear him. “No,” Mayor Prentiss says. I swear I can feel him smirking. “I imagine you can’t, though that’s an interesting story and not what you might –” 

My arm slips from his neck and I try to grasp his back but it’s too slippery and everything hurts and Todd shifts to try and catch me and I let out a gasp of pain from the movement. “Please!” he cries. “Save her!” I’ll do anything you say! I’ll join the army! I’ll –” I want to tell him no, he can’t join the Mayor’s army, not for me… not after all that we’ve been through, how far we’ve come… but I can’t say anything. I’ve lost the strength to speak. All I can do is fight to keep my eyes open. 

“All good things to those who wait,” Mayor Prentiss interrupts. He’s starting to sound fed up. I hear him dismount from his horse, his boots hitting the hard dirt road. “As the newly appointed President of this fair planet of ours, let me be the very first to welcome you to its capital city.” 

“Todd?” I manage to say, but it’s a slur. I look up into his face, but it’s becoming blurry, everything’s becoming blurry. I gasp shallow breaths of air, and even I’m surprised that I haven’t slipped into unconscious yet. Todd holds me even tighter to him, whispering, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.” And I want to tell him that it’s not fault… that I don’t blame him… that he could’ve never predicted this… but I lose my voice again and breathe shallowly into his chest, the blood from my wound covering him. 

“Welcome,” Mayor Prentiss says, “to New Prentisstown.” 

I close my eyes… just for a second… because they’re so heavy… and I’m so tired… and Todd shouts, “don’t close yer eyes, Viola! Don’t you dare!” I force my eyes open, but it’s becoming too difficult to keep them open… too difficult… 

“Well, that looks like a terrible accident,” Mayor Prentiss says, finally acknowledging my presence. "It ain’t no accident,” Todd spits, holding me even closer. I faintly hear the sounds of others dismounting. “Let’s take a look at that.” Then I hear the sounds of men approaching, and I feel hands pulling me away from him… they’re pulling me away from Todd. And I want to fight back, I want to scream, but I’ve lost all my energy and black spots are dotting my vision and I feel so dizzy and faint and all I can say is, “Todd?” 

He’s screaming, fighting back against the men preventing him from chasing after me. “Viola!” He’s crying. “VIOLA!” His Noise is as loud as anything, crying VIOLA VIOLA VIOLA. “Don’t you touch her! Don’t you dare effing touch her!” He shouts after the man carrying me away from Todd, the boy who saved me from the swamp, who saved me from Aaron, my first friend on New World. I hear his shouts and Noise get quieter and then they stop completely, and I don’t know what they’ve done to him… what they’ve done… and then I have to close my eyes because they’re so heavy and I can’t fight back anymore. I try but I can’t. They’ve taken him away somewhere… somewhere I can’t follow… I can’t do anything except bleed and bleed and bleed. Todd… Todd… 

“Take her to a House of Healing.”

Mayor Prentiss’s voice is the last thing I hear before losing consciousness completely, and no one shouts to try to keep me awake.


End file.
